Quick Tips on How to Clean Your Vaporizer

How to Clean Your Vaporizer

It’s no secret that you need to keep your vaporizer clean in order for it to operate at its highest potential. Only frequent cleanings – once every session or two will guarantee the optimal vapor quality and flavor. It’s a common consensus in the vape community that isopropyl alcohol is the best, most cost effective choice to use to clean your vape. Pound for pound, isopropyl alcohol is the strongest dissolvent for the price. Cleaning your vape properly does not just mean soaking your unit in the alcohol and waiting for it to clean itself. It’s a bit more complicated than that, but not by much. There are parts of your vape and device materials that you need to pay close attention to while cleaning, and there are also some pieces that should not come in contact with any alcohol. Doing so can be dangerous. To make sure you’re cleaning your vaporizer the right way, keep reading!

Why Cleaning Your Vape is Crucial

If you expect your vaporizer to be in good working order for every session, obviously you need to keep it clean. But why is this so crucial? Perhaps the biggest reason for this is the fact that when warm vapor couples with cool parts of the unit, a resin is formed as a result. This vapor, when condensed more and more, can be sticky and hard to remove if you let it build up. Think of it like anything else you were to breathe in and/or out of: if you were scuba diving with a mouthpiece that had caked on sediment, you wouldn’t last long underwater. The same is true for your vape – quality toke sessions will not last long if you let the resin build up and don’t clean it. You can also cause irreversible damage to your vape device if you let it get really bad. No worries though, as you can easily get rid of the resin with some trusty isopropyl alcohol applied to the right places.

Getting Started Cleaning Vape Parts

To get started, find a container to use to soak your vaporizer parts. Make sure you won’t mind donating said container to the cause of quality vape tokes, because you won’t want to fill it with food, or much of anything else for that matter unless it is made of glass or ceramic and thoroughly washed out after use. Once you have your designated vape residue container, fill it up with the isopropyl alcohol. After that, dissemble your vape. Take all of the elements of that vape that are made from glass and metal and fully submerge them in the alcohol. Cover the container and let it sit overnight. If you can do so without damaging the parts of the device, feel free to give the container a decent shake to make sure the alcohol gets into all of the nooks and crannies. After the glass and metal parts sit in the alcohol overnight, remove them and rinse thoroughly with warm water. Set out to air-dry. Some vape enthusiasts will also soak the plastic pieces to their devices, but we mostly recommend against that – as there are many different types of plastic. Instead, soak a cotton ball in your isopropyl alcohol and give each plastic part a nice scrub.

Do NOT Use Alcohol on These

As we previously mentioned, there are some parts of your vape and device materials that should never come in contact with isopropyl alcohol. One of such materials is wood. Alcohol breaks down the molecules in wood, and over time – causes wood to disintegrate entirely. Definitely keep your alcohol away from wooden pieces; otherwise they can be badly damaged. To clean wooden parts, soak a cotton ball or a Q-tip in warm water. Take the same approach to silicon, which is what most gaskets and desktop hitting tubes are made out of. Use some kind of gentle cleaner for any vape parts made from silicon.

Time to Vape Again

When you are all finished cleaning your vaporizer, it’s time to vape again. Before you pack a fresh bowl, be sure to turn your vape on to the highest setting for about 3-5 minutes. This is to ensure you don’t vape any of the residual alcohol that might still be there.

Just like with any other cleaning process, a little knowledge goes a long way. You’ll get a solid two-dozen or so cleanings from a bottle of isopropyl alcohol, which costs no more than $10.

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